Translation AddOns

[Thurock.3647]

hello, i would like to start a discussion about the positioning of arenanet (NCSoft), making possible some addon or similar that can offer text translation and interface to other languages, other MMOs have this type of tool.

would certainly facilitate new players to join with this perspective.

[anninke.7469]

The main problem I see with this is - who would make the addon? I would probably fall into the "not forbidden, not supported" group if done as some kind of overlay thing (I actually don't know a kitten's fart about making addons...).

And I believe it would be useful; I have a few friends who tried the game but left because their English is not good enough and they felt lost.

[Danikat.8537]

> @"anninke.7469" said:

> The main problem I see with this is - who would make the addon? I would probably fall into the "not forbidden, not supported" group if done as some kind of overlay thing (I actually don't know a kitten's fart about making addons...).

> And I believe it would be useful; I have a few friends who tried the game but left because their English is not good enough and they felt lost.

 

As with all addons the answer would be anyone with the time, ability and desire to make it. In this case that's likely to be either someone fluent in both a supported and unsupported language who can translate from one to the other, and who wants to get other people playing the game by giving them a language they can understand, or someone who isn't fluent but knows enough to look up the translations and then use the finished addon to be able to follow the story while playing. Or both since many addons are made by a small team rather than one person, and this would be a huge piece of work for a translator to do. Like the OP I've seen it done for other games

 

I suspect a bigger problem is how you'd get it working. GW2 doesn't support addons the way some other MMOs do where they can run within the game itself. It would have to be an overlay and either use the API (which probably doesn't share the text of all the dialogue) or use some sort of screen reader process to get the text to translate. There's also a mix of ways text appears, with text boxes, speech bubbles, both subtitled and non-subtitled cut scenes, NPC dialogue that only appears in the chat box (especially if you're facing away from them) and probably others. I imagine it would be a tricky thing to program.

 

But as I understand it **if** the finished addon was just an overlay and _didn't actually interact with the game itself_ that would be permitted by Anet. It wouldn't be supported, they wouldn't help you if it broke or if it broke anything else on your PC, but you wouldn't get banned for using it. The problems would be finding a way to get it to work and people to do the translation.

[anninke.7469]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

 

> ...

 

 

Well, I kind of meant to make the OP state if they're willing/able to create the addon or rather want someone else to make it.

As for me, while I would be willing (and might be able) to provide the relevant texts in my own language or at least contribute to the work, I have absolutely no idea how to program anything (therefore I didn't even realize the problems you mention).